Soaring regional tensions around the East China Sea are taking their toll on trade, with as many as 60pc of China’s corporate leaders unwilling to do business with Japanese firms, according to a new poll.

Only 13pc of Chinese businessmen said that they were able to separate their work from the current political tensions, while 60pc of corporate leaders in South Korea also voiced concern at conducting business with Japanese companies.

Japan, on the other hand, appeared more optimistic in relation to its overseas trade interests, with 80pc of business leaders stating that they were happy to continue trading with China and South Korea.

However, two-thirds of Japanese executives also named Southeast Asia as their most promising market, in a reflection of an anticipated shift towards the region as local tensions continue.

Hundreds of companies across the three nations were questioned as part of the survey, which was conducted jointly by three newspapers – the Nikkei in Japan, the Maeil Business Newspaper in South Korea and China’s Global Times.

“Japanese, Chinese and South Korean corporate leaders hold strikingly different views on cooperating amid political tensions,” the Nikkei concluded.

Relations between the three nations have been tainted for decades by regularly flaring territorial disputes as well as allegations of Japan’s revisionist interpretations of its wartime past.

Simmering territorial disputes flared late last year with China’s controversial expansion of its air defence zone above the East China Sea, including an area containing islands claimed by Japan.

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, went on to provoke instant regional outrage when he last month became the first visit leader in seven years to visit Yasukuni Shrine, widely regarded among neighbouring nations as a symbol of the nation’s wartime aggression.

Last week, tensions again escalated into a high profile war of words after the UK’s Chinese and Japanese ambassador both compared each other’s country to the Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort in separate comment pieces in the Telegraph.

The findings of the new poll – which was conducted before the Yasukuni Shrine visit - are likely to fuel concerns that the current political fallout may have a growing impact on critical trade relations between the three nations.

Trade in particular between China and Japan – the world’s second and third largest economies respectively – has almost trebled over the past 14 years to around £152 billion, reflecting the potentially high price tag of political troubles impacting bilateral commerce.

The three governments may be keen to avoid any overspill impact on trade, however, it appears to be a different matter when it comes to consumers: many shoppers in China are currently shunning Japanese goods, while sales of South Korean made smartphones have also cooled in Japan in recent months.

While trade between the Japan and China has been relatively “insulated” from political flare-ups in the past, the full impact of the current dispute remains to be seem, according to Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University.

“The problem facing Shinzo Abe is that alienating your biggest trade partner is not necessary good for business or growth,” Professor Kingston, who forecast a growing shift towards Southeast Asia among Japanese investors, told the Telegraph.

“This past year, overall, Japan exports to China have declined slightly but were recovering towards the end of 2013. This is partly due to the slow down in China’s growth but is also related to the escalation of tensions in the East China Sea. The insulation effect is not working as well as it used to.

“But both countries highly depend on each other economically. Even if Chinese corporate leaders are unhappy to do business together they will be happy to get access to Japanese technology, Japanese capital, Japanese markets.

“China still remains enormously important to Japan and Japan remains enormously important to China.”